| Abstract: | 75 patients with clinical features suggestive of malaria were studied to evaluate the efficacy of immunochromatographic test (ICT), which detects histidine rich protein-2 antigen secreted by Plasmodium falciparum (Pfhrp-2), as against direct microscopy. There were 40 cases of P falciparum malaria, 14 cases of P vivax malaria and 21 cases of non-malarial fevers. Direct microscopy could detect 27(67.5%) P falciparum cases but failed to detect 13 cases (32.5%) whereas ICT could detect 35(87.5%) P falciparum cases out of 40 but failed to detect 5(12.5%) cases. All the P vivax cases and non-malarial fever cases were negative for ICT. The sensitivity and specificity of ICT is 87.5% and 100% respectively where as the positive predictive value and the negative predictive value of the test is 100% and 87.5% respectively. It is concluded that ICT test is a good adjunct to blood smear studies in fever cases with neurological and multiorgan dysfunction and in antenatal ladies.Key Words: ICT, P falciparum |
